Translation Station #4: Kanaleneiland Event

As a follow-up of their previous three translation stations, all based on their experiences in Detroit, Nikos Doulos and João Evangelista presented their fourth and last one that this time takes place in de Utrecht area of Kanaleneiland. The translation stations are stops in the process in which experiences and knowledge that are obtained in Detroit, are tested in a new context. Expodium instructs the artists it sends to Detroit to physically get their hands dirty and realise projects that are entrenched in the urban situation in Detroit. This method is used in Kanaleneiland as well. That’s why Translation Station #4 focused on finding an appropriate way of applying knowledge that is obtained in Detroit, to the social context of Kanaleneiland.

Nikos got in contact with newcomers in the area during his stay: artists that have come to live in the area and found themselves confronted with the fact that they have to do ‘something’ in the area. The urge or capability however to act collectively is practically non-existent, as Nikos found out. His contribution to this evening thus existed of a performative presentation and slide show entitled ARE YOU PEOPLE?, in which he, together with Mai Linh Ly and Koen Marks (both living in Kanaleneiland), explained why collective feeling doesn’t emerge, what does make it emerge and what their actions were, based on the findings of Nikos. The action that came out of their experiences during last month is the so-called NIGHT WALKERS.

NIGHT WALKERS is a group of artists and inhabitants of Kanaleneiland. They carry out hikes at night in order to, collectively, explore new peculiarities in the area. On this evening too, a night walk took place with a focus on ‘spaces of tranquility’ in the area. The route took us to the promenade along the Amsterdam-Rijn canal, via the Sayidina Ibrahim mosque to the St. Antonius hospital and to the Eyüp Sultan mosque.

João Evangelista presented a service-project – SERVICE LAUNCH - from which he will try to instigate a collective response. Based on his knowledge obtained in Detroit about producing bio-diesel, he gave a ‘cooking work shop’. João constructed a bio-diesel lab in the apartment to give a demonstration on how to make bio-diesel. The presentation was filled with references to power relations, political tendencies and alternative economies. During stirring the mixture of methanol, hydroxide and vegetable oil, which took about twenty minutes, the audience could ask questions.

With his service João focuses on the community of vintage Mercedes owners. Within that bunch, there is already some interest in the bio-diesel lab. The upcoming period, João will pass the knowledge about bio-diesel production on to inhabitants of Kanaleneiland in order to create a collective around the lab. The lab is made mobile in order for it to travel with the inhabitants who are interested in continuing it.

Both presentations of the projects are moments in the trajectory of locatie:KANALENEILAND. The upcoming weeks both NIGHT WALKERS as the bio-diesel lab will be continued.

Translation Station #4

15.10.2011 | 20.00-23.00 | locatie:KANALENEILAND (Auriollaan 98)

João Evangelista | Nikos Doulos

As a follow-up of our three previous translation stations, all based on our Detroit experiences, We present the fourth and final translation station, this time in Kanaleneiland, Utrecht.

The translation stations are stops in the process of testing experiences and knowledge learned in Detroit, against different contexts. As Expodium assigns the artists they send to Detroit to get their hands dirty in order to come up with projects that root in the urban situation there, this method is also applied to Kanaleneiland. Therefore, Translation Station #4 focuses on finding an appropriate way of applying the knowledge gained in Detroit to the social context of Kanaleneiland.

João Evangelista | SERVICE LAUNCH 1& 2

15.00 (SERVICE LAUNCH 1) | 21.00 (SERVICE LAUNCH 2)

What proverbial power lies dorment in a neighborhood like Kanaleneiland? What groups of people already have their own productive way of looking after their own? João Evangelista will be showing a straightforward way of producing power, kick-starting a communal way of working on a shared interest.

Nikos Doulos | ARE YOU PEOPLE?

with Mai Linh Ly & Koen Marks 20.00

Nikos Doulos' performance is rooted in collecting information obtained while taking baby steps towards a collective doing. During his stay in Kanaleneiland this last month, he hooked up with many local artists and initiatives and tested several ways of operating as a collective, focusing on the 'why' rather than the 'know how' of such an activity. The emphasis was put on its necessity as a format for doing and creating a sense of 'belonging to' instead of it being a top-down initiative.

And of course one more NIGHT WALKERS session!

NIGHT WALKERS #4
22.00
NIGHT WALKERS is a group of artists and residents in Kanaleneiland, Utrecht.
They initiate night walks around the area.
Meeting point: Front porch at Auriollaan 98!

Join NIGHT WALKERS and:
allow yourself to get affected by the urban night-scape.

"I, European person, solemnly swear..."

"I, European person, solemnly swear" (and so on...).

We are doing our final preparations for the Art & Rave party tomorrow.

Sound check yesterday went well, even though it was hard to get it right.

But I am convinced we can clean the ears of the Detroitians, with the sound we now have...

TJOHOOoooOoOooOooooOooooo!!!!!!

Space out in Holland...It's not an option!

When we came here two weeks ago there was a literal Dutch invasion of Detroit,

Expodium was here, as well as Partisan Publik and Fonds BKVB and

their artists in residence hangers on.

The locals were understandably perplexed and wondered why so many Dutch people were suddenly interested in Detroit.

One of the reasons concerns urban space and freedom (or the lack of it).

In mega densely populated Holland every square meter is planned, booked and spoken for.

The relatively new situation in Detroit of urban shrinkage, frees up so much space,

space that can now be redefined.

I always had a theory about the Dutch

The reason why they legalized prostitution and drugs were not only for economical reasons,

even though the Dutch really likes money and are good at making it

( but not as good as the Swedes...njä njä njä njä njääää=teasing 1).

The prime reason for it was the lack of chaos in their surroundings.

The Dutch had controlled everything that would have been called nature in thee olden days,

even the ocean was cut up into small controllable grachtengordel, polder pieces.

In Sweden I sometimes go into to the enormous forests just to feel small and get a bit scared.

It puts me in place and in awe...

Nature is something uncontrollable, the forest (and nature in general) is a symbol for the unconscious, for "the other", for the unknown...

There is nothing scary, wild, or uncontrollable in the Dutch landscape

(except ganja smoking Italian tourists on bikes)

and THIS fact created the need for some semi legalized wildness in the form of "ladies of the night" and drugs...Until recently I also used this theory to explain the great love for culture that the Dutch used to have. Culture as the unknown...wild, scary, thought and emotion provoking.

How scary and unknown can a musical get??!!

If we take away the mind expanding possibilities in Holland of drugs, hookers and culture I think Holland will have collective panic attacks on a MASSIVE scale in a very near future.

People will realize how small and claustrophobic Holland is.

The new powerful political right is doing everything in its power to make Holland even smaller, to make the Dutch bitterballen walls come closing in...they come closer...and closer...

and closer...and....WHUAAAOAOOA!!!!!

Focus on your breathing Jonas!!!

fhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu....IN....fhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...OUT!

I came to NL as a Swedish western allochtoon in 1996,

and since I come from a richer country than Holland (njä njä njä njä njääää=teasing 2)

I am in the unique allochtoon situation that no one will think I came here for the money or for the social security checks (they're MUCH fatter in Sweden).

So I think I can afford (hehehehe...) to be blunt and speak freely.

I don't have a right to vote in Holland, but I voted FOR Holland 15 years ago when I moved here, with my life, my time, money, ambitions, passions and dreams.

So I DO have a right to be critical.

Holland NOW is not the Holland I came to 15 years ago.

But I will stay and fight.

Thatcher, Reagan, Bush...Rutte?!

KICK OUT THE JAMS MOTHERFUCKERS!!!

(famous MC5 song which made Detroit famous as the pre punk city...

Iggy and Stooges also helped out, hence the name, Detroit-Rock city!)

see here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM6nasmkg7A

Politically I also think it would be a good idea to stop focusing on Wilders.

VVD is hiding behind Wilders and not the other way around and now the new right in Holland can let all their wet little neo con dreams become a reality. Wilders is not the problem, we have populist right wing manipulators in every country, massaging the assholes of all the "Henk & Ingrids" of this world. The weak CDA (the warm "socialist" christians of the right) and the strength of the VVD is the problem.

But also...as artists and culture makers...

let's spend some time for a little bit of self reflection and self criticism too.

After the murders of Pim & Theo, Holland suffered one of their greatest trauma in recent history....how many of us artist did anything to deal with that drama in our art?

How many of us didn't just continue with our own discourses,

when maybe this could have been a good time to get hip to the now.

But we better get hip to THIS game quick though, otherwise the only option left will be...

tune in, turn on, drop out!

But even that won't work....Wilders, Donner, Zijlstra and Verhagen wants to shrink Holland mentally into an even smaller hobbit country...and there are not enough drugs in the world to MIND EXPAND our way out of that dark, tight, scary shithole.

So our only choice is to fight back hard.

Let's GO!!!

C U on the other side....

WE'VE GOT A "TWO-FIVE" HERE...!

Yes, Bart and I are back in Detroit again. This time for only a week, to catch up with our friends, as well as to meet new people for future exchanges. We also brought the publication that we’ve made with Nikos and Joao about their stay in Detroit and the three stations that followed afterwards in The Netherlands and Germany. And we also brought the whole “Archive of Impressions” that we exhibited in our Expodium space last October.

When we arrived at the Detroit airport, this time it was me who was picked out of the queue at Customs for a thorough check (who are you? What are you doing here? Where are you staying?). The lady at the desk looked at my passport, took my fingerprints, and without any question called a colleague of hers. The only thing she said was: “we’ve got a Two-Five here”..... All of a sudden I was a “two-five”, and I didn’t even know what that was. I was brought down to two numbers, which probably stood for something suspicious and which needed extra attention.

I was brought up to a special desk where another lady took my passport and started typing all kind of stuff into her computer. I tried to explain why I was here, and at the point that I was talking about the exchange of knowledge and experiences between Detroit and Utrecht, she cut me off and asked if I wanted to open my suitcase.

She went through my stuff (boxer shorts, warm socks, towel, toothpaste, shirts) and saw a carton box – about an A4 size. “What’s in the box?” she asked, and I replied “an exhibition”. There we stood, a couple of seconds, realising what the situation was, and she let me go. It’s great to be back again.

DETROIT: THE PUBLICATION

Bart and Luc are heading to Detroit to visit the "dream-team".
They will be carrying in their luggage the ARCHIVE OF IMPRESSIONS exhibition package as well as our recently produced Detroit publication.

"DETROIT: BACK TO THE FUTUREARCHIVE OF IMPRESSIONS - between illusion and delusion, Urban and Rural, living and leaving" is a 179 pages booklet, printed in a limited edition of 30 copies. Every copy is numbered and signed.
Around 10 of them will be distributed to the organizations and initiatives we have been collaborating with and 20 copies will be circulated to a expanded network of professionals as part of the Urban Translations project  .

This publication is designed to give an inside to our journey so far. It includes part of the Visual Archive, a series of texts as well as documentation photos and descriptive articles of all three stations of the Translation Process.



Unlike most booklets "DETROIT: BACK TO THE FUTUREARCHIVE OF IMPRESSIONS" avoids a linear order. A plastic screw on the top left side binds all pages together, inviting readers to "twist" instead of "flip", suggesting various starting points.

"This publication is set to give a mere impression of Detroit’s complexity and highlight notions, embedded within its current state. Notions such as mutualism and the sense of taking care, preservation and the sense of belonging, agency, necessity and the trust in the outcome of a creative mind......As artists interested in social phenomena, we research, documentate and mediate. We “engage” with our subject matter, put trust in our practice, our background knowledge and reflective skills.
But so do architects, philosophers, sociologists and journalists.
We have often wondered what separates us from any other researcher.
This publication is set to give an answer to that and establish a more concrete perception of our status during our sixty-four days residency in Detroit.
Cultural colonizers? Accidental tourists? Parachuted maggots? Temporal residents or all of the above? "
Abstract from the publication's introductory text.


p. 178.

Translation Process #2: Impakt Performance

Nikos Doulos Joao Evangelista
17.10.10 17:00 bus departure at Theater Kikker
( limited capacity)

Expodium’s participation in the Impakt Festival was a commissioned, progress-based work on ‘shrinking cities and emerging strategies’, carried out in a collaboration with the artists Nikos Doulos (Greece) and João Evangelista (Portugal) during a period of 64 days in Detroit.

The event revolved around the traces and marks left on the artists during their residency by means of a modular narrative in stations. Spectators were encouraged to envision the urban landscape in a process of arrivals and departures, an archive of impressions and stories.

An old American school bus took the audience out of the center of Utrecht to Hofstede, a preserved monument - farm, built next to the upcoming center of Leidsche Rijn.



First stop took place at Expodium, where people got confronted with the Visual Archive and were given twenty minutes to dive into it.
The visit to the farm consisted of scripted narratives performed on predefined locations/stations.



The discontinuity in the form of our narratives, shifting from here (Leidsche Rijn) to there (Detroit) and vice versa, served the purpose of highlighting the bypolarity in the co-existence of the urban and the rural, growth and shrinkage, Detroit and the Netherlands. What became of great importance to us was pointing out the need for a collective creative response towards the transitional nature of contemporary urban surroundings.

The city doesn't need artists. it needs persons who can respond creatively to life.
Erin Moran Martinez



first page of the tour script after rehearsal in the rain.

contribution to Filter-Detroit

FILTER DETROIT is the little sister of FILTER; a platform for international contemporary art and culture.
FILTER DETROIT researches structural and cultural processes of transformation in the urban landscape of Detroit. FILTER DETROIT is a research residence for artists and cultural producers and makers from Detroit and outside of Detroit.
FILTER DETROIT collaborates with Detroit’s cultural institutions and initiatives as well as internationally.
FILTER DETROIT is building up a living archive, a constantly transforming archive of information, documentation, knowledge, activity and space about urban interventions as well as social and artistic movements in Detroit and particularly on Moran Street in Detroit.

We got introduced to Kerstin Niemann by Luc and Bart, during our first visit to the Filter house in Moran Street.
After her invitation to contribute to the "live archive" of FILTER DETROIT, we started investigating what we could leave behind that would function as a manual for upcoming visitors and additionally work as a voice for all of the people we had encountered.

We therefore invited everyone we met to respond to the question of "how did you perceive our visit to Detroit".

For the last couple of years the city has become the center of attention for many social engaged artists and initiatives worldwide.

Detroit is not a blank canvas and every single attempt to represent its reality should be practiced with considerable thought and caution.

We received a small amount of contributions and decided make a small publication (one for FILTER DETROIT and one for EXPODIUM) in two copies.

All the contributions were placed unedited together with the following introductory text.

Dear Reader,

Attached to this letter you will find a series of contributions from the people we had encountered during our stay in Detroit. These following pages are the voice of a few. A few who are living and leaving, who belong and don't belong, a few who we have met in the 64 days spent in the city of Detroit.

We were here as the first artists in a residency initiated by Expodium Platform Voor Jonge Kunst (NL), 555 Gallery (US) and THE YES FARM (US).

As a response to the invitation of Kerstin to contribute to the living archive of the Filter Project, we decided to mediate what those that live here have thought, felt, believed, misunderstood, denied, accepted, dealt with and resolved, with our ephemeral stay.

We are aware that Detroit is not a blank canvas - that its inhabitants are fully capable of raising a critical voice and acting on matters imposed to their everyday lives. We asked the basic question of how do you perceive our temporary living in your community.

This passing through that promised only to deliver a gaze from an accidental tourist - a concerned one, a caring one, one under the weight of an ethics of the encounter with the other. Detroit’s past and its eminent future, with a complex present, filled with life and death, reveals a present cycle that promises so many potentialities. One cannot but dwell in daydreaming, a very hopeful dream.

In between illusion and delusion, in between the portrayal of Detroit as the post-industrial dystopia and Alice's Wonderland where every artists dream is possible, we found ourselves living with these people, and now we find ourselves leaving these people.

These contributions give a small but significant input to the problems of ephemeral living and practices of numerous visitors (artists, researchers, theoreticians etc.) in the Detroit area.

We put trust on people’s choice to express themselves through actions rather than words, through closed verbal encounters rather than public written contributions.

Therefore our call found place only within the ones who chose to formulate their opinions in that specific manner. Most of them chose the former rather than the later, but we feel strongly about maintaining that “literate” silence.

All contributions are placed unfiltered and unedited and should be treated with great respect in regards to each author.

We claim no authorship to the material and we expect any appropriation or use to occur under the full agreement of all the contributors. Whether you are a visitor or an inhabitant of the city, we invite you to flip through it, read carefully or discard it. We hope you have a fruitful stay and pleasant living.

Wishing you all the best,

Nikos Doulos & João Evangelista

Translation Process #1: Archive of Impressions

Nikos Doulos Joao Evangelista
1.10.10 - 29.10.10

Detroit's situation can be read as a visual manifestation of the new post-industrial city, a hybrid of a paradoxical alignment of the urdan and the rural, taking place in a single geographical frame, wrapped in a mediatic representation caught between delusion and illusion between " ruin porn" photography and the idea of a safe haven for artist.
The city displays far more complex signals that constitute the begging of a whole new attempt towards gentrification process, suggesting the rebirth of Detroit into a city of the future.

Station #1: Visual Translation- Archive of Impression
The exhibition is a visual amalgam of the one-month "translation process" the artists have undergone since their arrival back in the Netherlands. The gallery becomes a sight where a narrative of images is composed assisted by a script of factual and subjective subtitles.





You are confronted with a series of images - a visual archive - an archive of impression.
Think of them as stills of a movie. A movie that is open ended and has multiple narratives for you to explore.
You are given its script and your choice of movements will animate it.

translation processes

Nikos and Joao at Bobby Perrou room, Detroit July 2010. photo by Kt Andresky.

Where to go and how to begin? Our findings and impressions during our stay in Detroit float in a tank of mixed emotions and daydreams of a soon return.
We are fishing them out, let them dry and arrange them in a highly subjective order.
We named this A TRANSLATION PROCESS and is set to evolve in three stages.

First station is the VISUAL TRANSLATION leading to a white cube exhibition at the Expodium space. Documentation photos are being printed, documents are scanned and objects are photographed, all placed in A4 size papers, building a visual archive of 273 prints.



The exhibition will be accompanied by a booklet with comments, notes and information as "subtitles" for most of the visual archive.

Second stage is a one evening performance at the Impakt Festival 2010 - MATRIX CITY. We are focusing on a bus tour, starting from the center of Utrecht, passing by the Expodium space and arriving to a secret location near the upcoming center of Leidche Rijn. The viewing landscape will work as a backdrop to a series of "bypolar" narratives shifting between here and Detroit.

Third stage is a lecture/demonstration at Kunstlerhaus Sootborn curated by Kerstin Niemann and Filter Detroit. The event will evolve around notions and concepts of social interaction in the city of Detroit and aims to demonstrate and investigate possibilities of applying those notions in social contexts of western european environments.